By John Helmer, Moscow You need to know that a conflict of interest is the first step on the road to corruption. If you don’t; and if you also think that unzipping your fly in public isn’t indecent exposure, so long as you think the onlookers will be impressed by what you’re showing off, there’s […]

By John Helmer, Moscow There is every reason to read and reread the Tintin books by Hergé, and even more for boycotting the film just released by Steven Spielberg. The essay by Tom McCarthy is one of a hattrick by the London Guardian to rubbish what Spielberg has done.

By John Helmer, Moscow Arkady (right image) and Boris Rotenberg are under investigation by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) for running a cartel and price-rigging to cheat Gazprom, their longstanding business partner and patron. This is unusual for several reasons. One of them is that the Rotenbergs neither produce the goods in trade targeted by […]

By John Helmer, Moscow Oleg Deripaska, denied regular visa entry into the US for many years on US evidence of his business practices, has claimed in a Moscow press announcement this week that the barrier has been lifted. It hasn’t. Instead, he’s being escorted through a trapdoor.

By John Helmer, Moscow The latest announcement by Kommersant newspaper of a deal in which the Government of Guinea relieves United Company Rusal of the billion-dollar liabilities it was facing for its bauxite exporting and alumina smelting activities in the African republic isn’t what it’s meant to look.

By John Helmer, Moscow And now for a Classical breather. According to the Greek myth, Orion was a giant hunter who could walk across the Mediterranean. One evening he pulled one of those drunken turns that give dinner parties a bad name – he tried to make a dessert out of the daughter of his […]

By John Helmer, Moscow A leading shipbroker confirms that Suleiman Kerimov’s 90-metre motor yacht Ice is for sale at €200 million. “It is quietly on the market, but it is not being actively marketed,” the source revealed on Monday, days after the sale notice went up for Kerimov’s French beach house at €20 million.

By John Helmer, Moscow A website property sales agency, calling itself “specialized in urgent and forced sales of Luxury Properties, Super Cars & Yachts”, is offering Suleiman Kerimov’s holiday residence at Medy Roc, at Cap d’Antibes on the French coast. The sale notice is dated October 20, last week. A number of notable Russian-owned properties […]

By John Helmer, Moscow A Canadian Supreme Court judge has ruled that Alexei Mordashov rode roughshod over the rights of minority shareholders in Crew Gold, when Mordashov’s gold group completed its takeover of Crew Gold, and paid $4.65 per share to buy up minority shareholders. Justice Ronald Veale, the senior judge of the Supreme Court […]